Ryan nodded. “You’re right about that, but that has a lot to do with geographical separation, the secluded nature of Nepal, and the lack of live television cameras.”
“Your opinion, Mr. President. My opinion, and that of many learned academics, is that the Buddhists aren’t attacked like we are because they don’t meddle in other people’s affairs like we do.”
Ryan smiled. “Have you ever heard of the Yazidis?”
Now Juliet Robbins blinked hard. Ryan could see the wheels spinning in her brain as her face changed expression. “Of course, and I am not—”
“You talked, Juliet. You talked at length to set up your question, to establish your authority, and to make your opinions known. Now you will allow me to answer. Yes, the Yazidis are much like the Buddhists, aren’t they, in that they don’t have much, if any, real physical defense from the outside world? A passive community. I wonder why you didn’t think to mention them in a discussion of the Islamic State. After all, you are an expert, as you mentioned, on the region from which the Yazidis come. Are you also an expert on Nepal?”
“No, Mr. President, but your question—”
“Your question, Juliet, was, Why we don’t just leave the Islamic State alone so they will treat us better? Well, I’ll answer you by talking about the Yazidis. They lived on Sinjar Mountain, in a Kurdish-held area, and they’ve been there for hundreds of years, not bothering anyone. Even when the Islamic State moved into that territory four years ago, the Yazidis continued to stay for the most part on their mountain, though they were all but unarmed, all but unprotected.
“And then ISIS came up the mountain to root them out. The Yazidis were slaughtered, burned alive, killed ritualistically, sold into slavery. And this increased the flood of membership into the Islamic State. People all over the world joined ISIS when they saw what they did to the Yazidis, as well as others. So the group you think will behave with kindness if only met with kindness is, obviously, a death cult. Nothing more.”
Juliet Robbins started to speak again, but Ryan talked over her.
“So two questions for you, Juliet, and for all of those who agreed with her long preamble about turning the other cheek and simply allowing this scum to increase in size and scope. Do you think the United States of America, with friends and allies in the Middle East, with necessary business to do in the Middle East, should simply lay down all our guns and become pacifist like the Yazidis? And, if so, why do you think the Islamic State would treat us any better?
“I am not here to disrespect anyone’s religion. I am here to do my best to protect America and its allies, and if perversions of one particular religion endanger the men, women, children, and ideals I’ve sworn an oath to protect, then I will use every tool in my toolbox as President of the United States to defeat those responsible, and the ideas that give them strength and perpetuate their evil cause.
“I don’t believe, as you clearly do, in appeasing them. I agree with Winston Churchill, who said an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
“If you want to say we could all be as gentle as a Buddhist to earn a repayment in kindness from those who slaughtered thousands of perfectly gentle Yazidis, then your credibility on the matter is called into question. I will go elsewhere for my advice. I’m sorry, Juliet, you have a worldview that is probably very well-meaning, and surely accurate on many issues, but on this . . . I’m going to think about the Yazidis I have met, and I’m going to think about all the Yazidis I was unable to meet, and I will use them to decide if pacifism is a reasonable response to terror.”
As Juliet Robbins tried to compose a suitable retort, Ryan looked elsewhere in the room. “Next question?”
—
After the press conference Ryan returned to the Oval to find Arnie Van Damm waiting for him. Ryan just said, “I know, Arnie. I was too hard on Robbins.”
Arnie said, “Screw it, Jack. Glad you gave her hell.”
Ryan said, “I’m glad you’re glad, but if I lose you as the good angel on my shoulder, then I’m in trouble.”
Arnie said, “We’ve both been up here too long. I wanted to resign on the spot, grab the mic from you, then tell Juliet she could fly to Raqqa and try turning the other cheek herself.”
Jack Ryan gave half a smile, his first laugh in days. “You are irreplaceable, but it would almost be worth it just to get a front-row seat to watch that.”
Arnie said, “You and me, two old guys talking about what we would do if given half a chance.”
“Right,” Ryan said. “Better we focus our time on what we can do to make a difference around here.”
66
Alex Dalca sat in the Jeep at the far end of the tarmac in the airport in Craiova, and he watched the Gulfstream land. He was surprised the Albanians had such a nice airplane, and it gave him hope his temporary conditions in Macedonia wouldn’t be so bad.
It was afternoon, but the airport wasn’t busy. He’d been here an hour and he’d seen only one turboprop domestic commercial flight and a couple smaller cargo jets from other European countries in all that time.
He imagined this luxury jet was orders of magnitude more posh than the average aircraft to land at this backwater airfield.
He climbed out of his vehicle, hefted the backpack onto his shoulder, and walked straight between the two outbuildings, directly up to the runway, as instructed by his Albanian contact that morning. In light of last night’s attack by the Chinese, he’d had to cancel meeting Luca Gabor at the prison and call his daughter instead, and he had some concerns Gabor would demand more money for the change in plans. But apparently the man was happy enough to be robbing him for the three million, and just relayed a phone number to call through to the girl.
According to what he’d learned on the phone from the Albanian, it was just as Gabor had promised. They ran a casino in Skopje behind the scenes, and they agreed they could use Dalca to harvest information on guests, either while they were on the premises gambling or before they came to the hotel. The Albanians would use the information to know how much money the guests had, and any valuables, vices, or other tidbits of information that would give the house even greater odds.
Dalca imagined nobody got out of that casino with money, and if they did, they stood odds of getting waylaid and robbed on the street massively disproportionate with crime statistics in the capital.
The Albanians were a tough bunch, it was obvious from the phone call, and Alexandru Dalca would be their newest secret weapon. He figured the work would be easy, and they would pay him fairly. And on top of that he’d be safe, because there were, easily, fifty armed security in the casino at all times.
Just as promised, the plane turned at the end of the runway, then taxied back in his direction. Three minutes later, it stopped, and the air stairs opened. A swarthy-looking short, stocky man in his forties with black hair flecked with gray stood in the doorway, and beckoned him forward.
The man held a bottle of champagne and two flutes.
Dalca smiled. “Nice.” He was feeling better by the minute.
—
Alexandru Dalca climbed the stairs into the Hendley Associates G550 with a satisfied smirk on his face, and as he entered the cabin he reached out to shake the hand of the man he presumed to be Albanian.
He spoke slowly and clearly. “Hello. Do you speak English?”
Ding Chavez took his handshake and clamped down. “’Bout as good as any other East L.A. Chicano, ese.”
“I’m sorry?”
Dalca turned now, and he saw three more men in the cabin. One was older and heavy, but he sat in the back. The two men in cabin chairs feet away were bearded, muscular, closer to his age, and armed with handguns.
“Wait. Who are you?”
Chavez put the champagne and glasses in the galley, and then he spun Dalca to his knees, pushed him facedown into the aisle between th
e armed men.
Behind him, Country came out of the cockpit. “All cargo loaded?”
Chavez said, “Loaded. Time to make a trash run.”
Ding handed off the backpack to Jack, who immediately started going through it. As soon as he pulled the black hard drive out of the bag, he waved it at the stunned man with Chavez’s knee in the back of his neck.
“What’s this?” Jack asked.
With as much insolence as he could muster, Dalca said, “What does it look like?”
“It looks like something that will get you killed, if your smart mouth doesn’t do it first.”
Jack nodded to Country, who immediately closed the hatch and returned to the cockpit.
Chavez frisked the man carefully, zip-tied his arms behind his back, and then blindfolded him tightly and securely. He yanked Dalca into a seat, and then sat down in front of him. “The good news is, we aren’t the Chinese. The bad news is, you didn’t fuck over the Chinese as badly as you did the Americans.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I can help. The U.S. government has had a nice conversation with the ambassador to Macedonia, who grounded the flight that was on its way here to pick you up. On top of that, two of the guys on that plane—and I hear it wasn’t half as nice a plane as this—had some outstanding warrants, so your Albanian buddies are almost, but not quite, as fucked as you are.”
The Gulfstream took off and began heading to the west. It would be eight hours in the air till D.C., which meant to the men of The Campus that they had eight hours to get every last bit of intel out of the bewildered but still smug man tied in the cabin.
The men converged in the back of the plane, leaving Dalca tied in a cabin chair, and they talked about their strategy to get information from him.
They had their man, and they should have all been happy right now, but they’d learned about the attack in Chicago just hours before, so none of them were anything of the sort. Dom himself had called the plane when they were taking off from Bucharest and told them Adara had been shot, but doctors said she’d make a full recovery.
All four of them tried to shake the tragedy in Chicago out of their minds so they could begin the work of extracting information from the man who was, in large part, responsible.
Midas just jerked a thumb at Dalca. “All this stuff this asshole is responsible for, and he’s off by himself. His escape plan was a rope ladder, a bike, and some Albanian dudes in Macedonia he didn’t even know. That’s his nod to PERSEC. No bodyguards, no well-paid goons to shadow him. No affiliation with a state actor, or a nonstate actor, for that matter. Yeah, he’s got the deal with the Albanians, but he just worked that out in the past twenty-four hours.”
Chavez asked, “What are you thinking?”
“Dunno, chief. Like maybe we’re missing a piece to the puzzle. Like there is more to this whole thing than we understand.”
Chavez turned to Jack. “What do you think?”
“I think this guy started playing in water that turned out to be too deep for him. He didn’t think anything could be traced back to him, so he went for the cash.”
Midas next said, “The question is, how do we get him to talk?”
Chavez answered, “He obviously doesn’t care about others. Let’s see if he cares about himself.”
Jack moved up and sat in front of Dalca, Ding and Midas moved nearby, and Gavin remained at the back of the aircraft, working to get into Dalca’s laptop computer. The hard drive sat next to it, already attached to a clean computer that Gavin had brought along for just that purpose.
Jack said, “Time for you to tell us what you know.”
The Romanian replied, “I want a martini.”
Jack blinked in surprise. “And I want to shoot you in the face.”
The corners of Dalca’s mouth turned upward, disappearing under his blindfold. “But you can’t, can you?”
Jack did not reply.
Dalca added, “Very dry, up, with a twist.”
Jack thought about the people who had died because of this man. Jennifer Kincaid, a woman he’d never met, but whose husband had sat in the very chair in which Dalca now sat, was at the front of his mind.
Jack said, “Fuck you and your twist,” and he hit the blindfolded Romanian in the face.
Chavez looked to Midas, who was seated closer to Jack, and Midas grabbed Jack’s arm right before he delivered an even harder blow.
“Slow down there, Sugar Ray,” Midas said. “Chill out a minute. This cockbreath’s not going anywhere.”
Dalca spit blood down the front of his shirt. “You need me. I am the only one who knows which targeting folders I sent, and to whom.”
Jack nodded to Midas that he was under control. He took a deep breath and said, “We know who you sent them to. Musa al-Matari. And we know who you worked for. The Chinese. We don’t need you as much as you think. Even without you, the Chinese still have the ability to compromise U.S. government employees, just as you did, because they have copies of the files.”
Dalca sat there without moving for several seconds. “I am the only one with the files. ARTD got access to them accidentally, by hacking into an Indian security company that had a contract with the American company hired by the OPM to evaluate its network’s susceptibility to a hack. The Indians had the data, but it was just sitting on a server, unnoticed and unexploited. When we realized what we had, we pulled it off and air-gapped it to make it safe, then began looking into it.”
Jack was astonished by this. “You are saying that the Chinese do not have these files?”
Dalca shook his head. “None of them.”
“Bullshit. You are lying because you think it improves your negotiating ability.”
Dalca shook his head adamantly. “They didn’t want to touch them. We aren’t even working with the Chinese directly. We were hired by a front company called the Seychelles Group.”
Jack wrote the name down on a notepad, planning on researching the firm when the interrogation was finished.
To Dalca he said, “I want a list of everyone you targeted. Everyone.”
Dalca shrugged dramatically. Finally he said, “I’ll talk. But not for free. I want some things in exchange.”
Gavin called Chavez to the back of the aircraft. “It’s going to take me days if not weeks to get past his encryption and get on his machine. If he’d give us the password, it might save a lot of lives in the meantime.”
Jack couldn’t hear the conversation in the back, but he could tell by Gavin’s gesticulations that he was getting nowhere with Dalca’s machine. He balled his fist up again, started to raise it toward Dalca, but Midas put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Chavez returned from the rear of the aircraft and leaned into Alex Dalca’s ear. “All right, Alex. We’re ready to hear your terms.”
And with that, Jack stood up and walked to the galley. He needed a stiff drink.
67
The call was arranged by Mary Pat Foley, and sent to President Jack Ryan’s private number. He knew to expect it, but not what would be discussed, so he waited nervously in his private study on the second floor of the White House living quarters.
The phone rang and he snatched it up. “Clark?”
“Yes, Mr. President, sorry to bother you.”
“Mary Pat only told me that this call wasn’t about Jack Junior.”
“Correct, sir. Jack’s fine. Sorry if this phone call has caused you undue concern.”
Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. “Not a problem.”
“Right now, the Campus aircraft is flying over Western Europe with a man named Alex Dalca on board as a prisoner. He is the employee of the Romanian computer hacking concern that acquired the files off of the Office of Personnel Management’s network. Dalca was hired to find American spies for the Chinese, but he freelanced and u
ncovered targets in the American government and military, then sold this information off to several countries and concerns, most notably ISIS.”
“Incredible. Where are the files now?”
“On board the aircraft. Dalca says there were no other copies, but we have no way of knowing if that is true.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes. This was all good news, but it had been an incredibly bad month, and it wouldn’t end with this man’s capture. He said, “Excellent work, John.”
“Thanks, but I’m not calling to get a pat on the back. We need your help.”
Ryan’s eyebrows furrowed, because he feared he knew where this was going. “Whatever you do, don’t say ‘a pardon.’”
Clark sighed into the phone. “Dalca will help us, but he wants a full pardon and twenty-five million dollars.”
“Oh, for crying out loud.”
“Yes, Mr. President. It’s up to you, of course, but he is guaranteeing he will reveal every other targeted person in the U.S. and abroad. He sold off the information piecemeal to several actors, apparently.”
Ryan stared at the carpet between his feet. Paying this man off and letting him go made his stomach want to retch. But the more he thought about it, the more he recognized the situation he was in.
Clark prodded him. “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but time is very much of the essence.”
“He wants to talk to me on the phone?”
“Videoconference. He’s insisting.”
“Christ. Who is this guy?”
“He’s a piece of work, for sure, Mr. President. No conscience, no code. Just a guy looking for money, trampling over whoever is in his way.”
“A sociopath,” Ryan said.
Clark said, “I think that’s a fair assumption. Anyway, Mary Pat said she could have a videoconference set up in minutes in the Situation Room with her liaison there. You just say the word.”